DANGEROUS WORLD: So smokers will soon be forced to see what their habit does to them (Cigarette packets to carry shocking cancer photos, News, last week). Such cant and humbug.

Doubtless there will be similarly shocking photos of obese people plastered on all confectionery. And a rosy cross-section of a sclerotic artery on some dairy produce. And we really must have photos of brain-damaged young men on motorbikes and a juicy cirrhotic liver on all alcoholic drinks. And let us not forget the shocking photographs of the foot and mouth funeral pyres — but, maybe, they would be too close to home for this hypocritical government.

Sheridan Stevens
Slindon Common, West Sussex

NO CURE: You report that 360,000 Britons per year require hospital treatment at a cost of about £1.7 billion. Even if the tax on a packet were only £1 and those sick people smoked a packet a day, it would mean that they pay for their own medical treatment in just 13 years. But cigarettes take far longer than 13 years to make smokers sick, not every smoker gets sick, the tax is far in excess of £1 per packet, and smokers die disproportionately younger than non-smokers, thus drawing less in pensions.

A successful anti-smoking campaign would have dire consequences on the exchequer and would necessitate compensating tax rises and/or cuts in services such as hospitals.

Tony Allwright
tony@tallrite.com